The following day he writes: “It may be noted among our little miseries that we have more than fifty dogs on board, the majority of whom might rather be characterized as ‘ravening wolves.’ To feed this family upon whose strength our progress and success depend, is really a difficult matter. The absence of shore or land ice to the south in Baffin Bay has prevented our rifles from contributing any material aid to our commissariat. Our two bears lasted the cormorants but eight days; and to feed them upon the meagre allowance of two pounds of raw flesh every other day is an almost impossible necessity. Only yesterday they were ready to eat the caboose up, for I would not give them pemmican. Corn meal or beans, which Penney’s dogs fed on, they disdain to touch; and salt junk would kill them. “Accordingly, I started out this morning to hunt walrus, with which the Sound is teeming. We saw at least fifty of these dusky monsters, and approached many groups within twenty paces. But our rifle balls reverberated from their hides like cork pellets from a pop-gun target, and we could not get within harpoon distance of one. Later in the day, however, Ohlsen, climbing a neighboring hill to scan the horizon and see if the ice had slackened, found the dead carcass of a narwhale or sea-unicorn; a happy discovery, which has secured for us at least six hundred pounds of good, fetid, wholesome flesh. The length of the narwhale was fourteen feet, and his process, or ‘horn,’ from the tip to its bony encasement, four feet.... We built a fire on the rocks, and melted down his blubber: he will yield readily two barrels of oil.” [Sidenote: _DR. ELISHA K. KANE_] The condition of the ice, furious gales, and the fast approaching winter all combined to dishearten the crew, who with one exception desired to return south and find winter quarters. Dr. Kane, however, determined to push northward, and finally located in Rensseläer Harbour 78° 37´ N., 71° W. By the 10th of September, the long “night in which no man can work” was close at hand; the thermometer stood at 14°; every preparation was made for wintering; a storehouse was erected at Butler Island; an astronomical observatory arranged at a short distance from the ship. “Besides preparing our winter quarters,” writes Dr. Kane, “I am engaged in the preliminary arrangements for my provision depots along the Greenland coast. Mr. Kennedy is, I believe, the only one of my predecessors who has used October and November for Arctic field work; but I deem it important to our movements during the winter and spring, that depots in advance should be made before the darkness sets in. I purpose arranging three of them at intervals,—pushing them as far forward as I can,—to contain in all some twelve hundred pounds of provision, of which eight hundred will be pemmican.”